an immutable tenet

You will never be powerful enough. It’s hard to develop a tenet, let alone an immutable one. I mean, how do you know something you propose as infallible will never be challenged? Easy: think like a sociopath. Stick to your conviction with the ferocity of a religious fundamentalist – no one’s going to tell you Americans aren’t infidels, that you can’t have 37 wives, pornography isn’t evil, or that a comet won’t take you to heaven. You’re crazy. Enjoy it. At least you know the truth.

I know the truth: I will never be powerful enough. And I feel I lost site of this recently. Climbing routes is great; I enjoy the commitment in training for and finally performing on climbs of scale, as opposed to bouldering for shorter sequences. That’s not to say I don’t love bouldering. I do. It’s just that sport routes appeal to me slightly more. But in my effort to build some semblance of endurance for sport routes I neglected to train raw power. And I’ve had enough of that. So, instead of heading to Ventura for routes at Vertical Heaven, I’ll be at the Shed this weekend, campusing. I’m going to campus, train for the one-finger Birthday Challenge pull-up, then swim. Whatever you’re doing this weekend, it can’t be better than training power.

Oh yeah, and I meant to write about last weekend’s climbing – I was at Vertical Heaven with Justin for about 5 hours. It was rad. Then I did a hangboard workout at the Shed on Sunday. Also rad. My body’s able to absorb a larger volume of training now, and I’m going to give it to it – just not this Saturday. That’s the day I’m saving for power training. I’m pissed I couldn’t do 1-4-7 or really two-finger campus much at all on Tuesday. I need more power. Obviously.

Brian – I’m thinking the middle-finger will be the focus of my one-arm training. Hopefully the ring-finger will be trained comparably but I’m not betting the farm on it. Phil might choose his ring finger though. His middle is pretty tweaked from back in the day.Andy – That’s some genius stuff. I’m seriously drafting a proposal letter to Carhartt today. There’s no way Iron Mind will talk to us. And the big holds thing… I love you, man.